Warmth
by Zinaida
Summary: Someone's watching over Harry. Please review and maybe give me some suggestions? I'd really really appreciate it if anyone gave me some suggestions as to how to continue. I'm stuck. Bad.
1. Chapter 1

Who cares about the last book. Harry and the others are fighting Voldemort's war in seventh year.

Auror camp. Tents. Shelters. "Always remember to check your sneakoscope before you enter your tent, Harry." "Never forget to Seal your tent before you leave, Harry" Don't do this, Harry… Don't do that, Harry… _SHUT UP!_ Harry yearned for his thoughts to stop about all of these annoying precautions and warnings drilled into his mind when he had entered the battle against Voldemort. He arrived before his tent "Always remember to check your sneakoscope before you enter your tent, Harry." He lifted the little golden device out of his robe pocket. Silent, no spinning. As usual. He Un-sealed his tent and entered.

Something's not right… His senses were telling him. He checked the sneakoscope again. Silent. Maybe it was just the stressful day, he told himself, tapping his wand against his thigh. He carefully slipped in, lit his wand. Nobody was there. He flopped onto his big, comfortable bed, that possible, thankfully to the magically enlarged space in the tent, or else he would be sleeping on the hard muggle bunks that would only make his aching muscles worse.

Day after day, he went through the same routine, the sneakoscope kept telling him that he was alone, but he didn't somehow really trust it.

Winter came, and the Aurors arrived at a small wizarding village to buy some thick fur coats and provisions. The bitter chilled cold and snow gave many wizards painful frost bites on their fingertips or their noses. Harry showed no signs at all of being affected by the cold or the chill while other witches and wizards complain so much about it. Harry always felt warm without needing to wear lots, so, he bought a relatively thin coat.

Apart from one particularly chilly night.

They had to leave camp for one day, carried some of their food, water and some excess robes for change and hiked up a mountain. Death eaters have left some trails that might lead them to Voldemort.

Harry was warm all along the trip. He was becoming less and less aware of himself with all the endless fighting and dueling with the Death Eaters. He is 

often dreamy, drifting through the day, almost soullessly, occupied by all the Voldemort business.

"HARRY!" Tonks yelled into his ear. Harry jumped. "What?"

"Stop day dreaming. We've been hiking for hours… you sure you're not tired, hungry, or cold?"

Harry gave a soulless chuckle, "Tired, hungry, bloody hell, of course. Cold, never." And kept hiking up with the rest of the group. They reached the high part of the mountain, snowcapped. Higher up, the entire group was caught in the middle of a blizzard.

Their leader, Kingsley told them that the day's work should be enough, so the group just huddled together, used the shared tent magically enlarged ten times bigger than the normal ones. Kingsley chose a few elite Aurors, including Harry.

Harry groaned and walked forwards to the smaller group. "Look…" Kingsley said uneasily. "Come here, follow me." And lead the group on. They walked for a while and reached what they were looking for.

"Look here," He cast a spell on the dark snow. It glowed, and then a dark trail of blood appeared. "Muggle blood, so the spell says. There have been muggle baiting here. The snow's only two inches thick, and the blood is still fresh. Separate, and look for more clues, if you find any, send green sparks up the sky.

Harry starts to feel cold

He traipsed around, rubbing his hands and breathing warm air into his palms, trying to thaw the now freezing fingers, at the same time, trying to find any signs of Death Eaters around.

After awhile, green sparks appeared northbound. That ends their Death Eater hunt for the day.

Harry didn't really have enough clothes. The fur coat he bought at the village was way too thin to stand this colder weather, and his teeth began to chatter and his hands began to go numb in the chill. Even the warming spell couldn't help such extreme weather. He knew he had to return to Kingsley's group to 

reunite, but his limbs didn't obey him, his body couldn't move, while his mind screams for him to return to the group, and hypothermia sets in.

At the edge of falling into the darkness of the cold sleep, he thought he might have just seen silver and gold. But he thought that he was just dreaming


	2. Chapter 2

Harry heard murmurs. He can't make out the words, but they sounded concerned. Then he became fully concious.

"Bloody hell mate, you gave us a good fright!" Ron said. Harry took a bit of time to register his comment. Then he remembered the blink of light he saw before he was unconcious.

"How do you feel, Harry?" Hermione asked "I mean, you were hypothermic, are you still cold?" Harry then remembered. _Wait, hypothermic?_

"Hypothermic?"

"Yes." Hermione replied.

"But I don't remember hypothermia, I mean, I didn't shiver and I certainly didn't hyperventilate or anything. I just passed out."

"But Tonks said you sent a signal, a short while after Death Eater tracks were found. They all thought you were suffering pretty badly by then."

"No..." _Light, the light. _"Look, I just want to rest and sleep. Tell Tonks and the others that I will be fine and I'll resume with the whole Death Eater business the day after tomorrow."

"I don't think so, mate. Don't overwork yourself, we certainly don't want you to have another episode of hypothermia. One is already bad enough." Ron told him.

"Right. Fine" Then Ron and Hermione left the room. Harry just keeps thinking about the light before he passed out. Or was it? It looked like silver and gold, but his vision was clouded, were they really silver and gold? He had felt strangely peaceful when hypothermia had set on him. Somehow a sense of belonging. To what? Throughout his life, he had never had any sense of any belonging whatsoever to anyone or anything at all. Hedwig? Dead. Parents? Dead. Sirius? Dead. Godric's Hollow? He never even lived there. Ron and Hermione? Just friends, not much of a family. Hogwarts? He's no longer a student there. He can't rely on it forever.

After one night of peaceful sleep, voices of people has awakened him again. _What now?_

He sat up on bed, certainly feeling better than he has in a long time. He got off his bed, put on a coat and walked to the opening of his tent. He needn't ask what was going on.

Right in front of his tent, floating right in the middle of the air, in bright green lettering wrote, _take better care of him_.

Questions like, who wrote this? Who is that person? Who did this? All different sorts of variations of the same question asked over and over again. Everyone in the Auror camp was crowded in front of Harry's tent. When Lupin saw him come out, he asked, "Harry, do you know who wrote this? We've all been checked, nobody here has done it." Harry shook his head. A wizard that Harry doesn't know came towards him and said, "Mr. Potter, may I please have your wand?" Harry nodded and fetched it for him. He casted a spell that reveals the previous spell Harry's wand has casted. The result brought gasps.

The words, _Take better care of him_ floated seamlessly out out the tip of Harry's wand.

"Harry, thats really not funny mate" Ron said.

"I didn't do it." Harry simply stated.

"But it was clearly issued from your wand, Harry, who else could have?" Hermione reasoned.

"But I didn't do it." Harry repeated.

"Harry, if you didn't, then who did? We were all asleep during the time it was written." Tonks said.

"I swear on Veritaserum that I didn't do it. I was also asleep."

By this time, to Harry's contentment, most of the crowding witches and wizards have already dispersed, leaving only the ones Harry is familiar with.

"Well, you know Harry, it is really not a good time to play a joke here. We are all quite disquieted since the Death Eater muggle baiting incidents. Giving the idea of someone outside this camp coming in is really not something to be done." Lupin said to him.

"Whatever you think, I still didn't do anything of those sorts. I'm just going to go back in."

Even Harry himself wants to know who did that. Should he still trust his Sneakoscope? Probably. He set his sneakoscope next to his bed, as an alarm if anyone shouldn't be here has intruded.

He faintly woke to the feeling of a soft wet cloth brushing lightly, to and fro, cleaning his torso. He faintly remembered a touch of light tangible gold on his forehead... more like a chaste kiss, with subtle silver light in his eyes and a soft comforting voice whispering into his ear, _I love you Harry._


	3. Chapter 3

There is a commotion outside Harry's tent, again, to his great annoyance. He once again woke up, grabbed his thick fur coat and walked outside. But this time, even he himself was shocked.

There, right out of his tent, stood Draco Malfoy.

"What's going on?" Harry asked. No one answered him.

Lupin held a struggling Draco tightly with his hands behind his back, with Tonks pointing her wand at Draco's throat and yelled at him, "What were you doing to Harry? How did you get in here?"

"Nothing. I didn't do anything to him." Draco stopped struggling and panted, his breath frosted before him. He glared at Tonks.

"I'm going to give you one last chance. What did you do to Harry and how did you get in?" Pressing the tip of her wand hard into Draco's throat.

"He did nothing." Harry stepped forward. Tonks kept her wand pressed into Draco's throat. She looked at Harry, but her attention was still on Draco. "Tonks, its alright, let him in, or else, its his turn to be hypothermic."

"He has to be sent away." said Tonks

"What? Tonks, he'll die!" At this, Draco turned and looked at Harry.

"Harry, be reasonable, he may bloody well be a spy." Hermione added with an edge to her voice.

"Be reasonable? _You_ be reasonable." Harry tried to stay calm. He took a deep breath and continued. "Look, Malfoy may have intruded, but he definitely meant no harm, or else he could have killed us long ago, while we were all still _sleeping_." Then suddenly, something sparked in his mind, "Besides, we all have sneakoscopes right? Bring them out." Some wizards and witches already had their sneakoscopes with them so they were all brought to Harry. Nothing happened to the sneakoscopes. "See, the sneakoscopes didn't and never rang, it's plain clear that nothing is wrong with Draco" _Draco?_ "So just leave him be." Earning awkward glances, he retreated back to his own tent.

He heard Draco come in after him, with soft footsteps.

"Thanks Potter."

"It's fine." and he fell face first onto his bed, still tired and worn out. He remembered that Draco needed a place to sleep. He turned around and said "You can stay in my tent, if you don't really mind."

Draco nodded, and Harry Summoned another bunk bed for Draco to sleep in.

That night, Harry watched Draco for a while before trying to fall asleep. He was only clad in a pair of Harry's shorts. Despite Draco being the rich aristocrat, the expected top-notch sleeping posture was not at all fulfilled. With half the sheets on the floor and only a small remaining portion covering his left thigh only, Harry couldn't help notice how smooth they were. All the way down to the legs, the ankles, foot and toes, looked like finely chiseled alabaster. One of his arms were bent slightly and the other hung loosely over the bed. His head was only half way from slipping down. Harry gazed at his hair, not too long but definitely the longest Harry had ever seen them, silky platinum gold, and it too, was hovering over the floor.

Harry looked and looked and looked. For a long while, but he doesn't know exactly for how long.

A long time, Harry remained gaping, till Draco suddenly said, not too all un-nicely "Get some sleep, Potter" after a while, Harry frowned, "I can't." and Draco slowly sat up, facing Harry, "Well, why not?" After a long while, he answered, "Nothing much. Just thinking." after a while, he suddenly remembered to ask, "How did you get in here anyway?"

"It's not hard. The wizard on guard was asleep. So I just sneaked in, easily."

Harry chuckled lightly, and a scintilla of amusement crossed Draco's silver eyes. "Sleeping on his job. Hah, could get himself fired."

"How do you mean? You burn people who sleeps while working?" He asked, tilting his head.

"Well, no. Its a muggle slang." He chuckled again "Well, will I taint your pureblood ears explaining to you muggle slangs?"

"Try me" with an uncanny smile.

So he explained to him the expressions, chattering, tête-à-tête, till day light broke out. Harry became very sleepy, and slipped into a blissful sleep, where gold is upon his forehead, silver in his eyes and a mellifluous voice singing a gratifying song, a warm sweet breath upon his ears.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry woke to the pleasant sound of someone humming a song from the Beatles. It was Draco unpacking what little personal possessions he had. Harry sat up, rubbing his face, he asked,

"Blackbird?", tilting his messy disarranged head of hair.

"Why of course."

"But the Beatles is a muggle band."

Draco look at him for a while before replying. "Well it isn't. Why do you think their songs are so popular?" Harry thought the Beatles have woven a spell into their songs to charm the muggles. Draco seemed to have read his thoughts, and he chuckled lightly, and hummed another tune. Harry suddenly felt a moment of déjà vu resounding with that melody. Now where have I heard that before? His mind synched out for a bit, he faintly heard him say that they were really wizards, who were just really good at music, popular among wizards and muggles, first band to ever do that. He paused, and he asked if he was alright.

"Harry?"

"Draco, tell me. Honestly, why are you here?"

Draco felt a small moment of chagrin pass. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you didn't just appear here randomly. Did you?"

No I didn't. I followed you. Knowing you, you wouldn't bother wearing enough clothes, casted warming spells on you, kept you warm, kept you safe, untill…… "I did."

"Draco" Second time he'd use my first name "I can tell when you're lying." Harry perused Draco carefully, as if his eyes could pierce him.

"Fine. Harry, I'll tell you, since you're being petulant and I'll only say it so you'll stop looking at me like you could impale me."

"Alright. Better than nothing"

"I'm running from my father" Harry expected him to continue, but he didn't

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Well how did it start? I mean, why? How? Does it have anything to do with Voldemort? What abou-"

"Harry." They both paused suddenly. "Stop. Lets not talk about this" He sat on Harry's bed. Even though he tried hard to mask the pain in his eyes, Harry saw through it. He dragged himself from under his bed covers and shuffled next to Draco.

"Come here" Harry said, and draped his arm across Draco's shoulders. He leaned in his head and found a cranny where his head welded unsurpassably into Harry's neck. He draped his other arm across his collarbone and joined his other hand, hugging Draco. The moment was just picture perfect.

Untill Harry sneezed.

"I was just enjoying that!" said a peeved Draco.

"Well, I'm sorry that you're hair is so light and delicate it tickles." Harry blurted defensively. And blushed. He began to pull his arms away, and Draco held one of them in place, and brought them to his lap palm up and spread his fingers open, examining each finger.

"You have lots of callouses." Draco said while rubbing them.

"Well, its from Quidditch…… Can't be bothered wearing gloves, and so do you." Harry retaliated "I can feel your callouses too."

They both thoroughly enjoyed the moment……

…… then Ginny happened.

"Harry! Oh Harry!" She threw herself onto him. "Ron and Hermione told me what happened, are you alright?"

"Yes yes I am. What brought you here so soon? Shouldn't you be gone for at least another week?" Harry didn't even bothered concealing his annoyance.

"I was, but then field reporting was too dangerous, so I left. And I came to see you."

"Yes um. Oh, I think Tonks needs some help over in the furthest tent over the east side." Harry stood up and roughly shoved her to the tent opening. "Oh and say 'hi' to Draco." Ginny just briefly glared at him and left.

"Well?" Draco said, arching one eyebrow "What was that all about?"

"Sorry." Harry said, suddenly finding his toes very interesting.

"Come on, out with it, why do you hate her so much?"

"I don't hate her." I do hate her, and I'm annoyed that she spoiled our moment… Oh god, was he… was last night… was the night before?

"Sure looks like it"

Harry didn't reply. "Now, YOU come here." Draco shuffled untill his haunches rested comfortably against the pillows. He swung one leg onto the bed and let the other foot on the floor. He patted the space between his legs and Harry sat there. Draco wrapped his arms around him strongly and pulled him back, resting on the pillows, while catching Harry unawares, he thumped onto Draco, Harry lying on top of Draco's, and his legs in between Draco's. His hair wove seamlessly into Draco's silky platinum. He could feel and smell Draco's sweet breath right next to his cheek.

"It was you!" Harry whispered, with the memories of everything last night and the night before suddenly came rushing back vividly.

"Yes"

"You saved me two days ago?"

"Yes"

"Tonks caught you when you were leaving?"

"Yes"

"You did the thing with the wand?"

"Yes"

"Did you mean it when you said you loved me?"

Draco let a hiatus pass. "Harry, I'm sorry, I don't mean to-"

"No, its alright." Harry smiled. "I rather like it."

Draco twined one leg around Harry's and and let his hand rest on Harry's abdomen. His other hand caressed his cheek gently.

"I want to kiss you right here and now, Draco"

"Then do." With powerful arms, Harry pivoted himself and laid face down atop of Draco. Draco twirled Harry's black hair and pulled him into a tender and sweet-tempered kiss, and Draco wrapped his legs around Harry's waist.


End file.
